Thirty years ago, in my junior year of college, I fulfilled a childhood dream: not only to conduct an orchestra one time, but to be the orchestra’s regular conductor. It wasn’t the Chicago Symphony or the New York Philharmonic, of course—it was a student ensemble, the Berkeley College Orchestra (Berkeley is one of the residential colleges at Yale). At the time, Yale boasted more than half a dozen such student-led orchestras, which was one of the major reasons I wanted to go there. And while many of those other ensembles have faded away, I’m delighted that that BCO is celebrating its 50th anniversary this spring.

The summer before that year, I spent a lot of time ruminating about how I wanted to show up with the orchestra. I watched lots of videos of conductors like Riccardo Muti and Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein. I remember watching one interview with the great violinist Isaac Stern in which he said that a conductor needed to know more about the score in his pinkie fingernail than the rest of the orchestra combined. On the other end of the spectrum, I had experienced conductors who were so deferential to the orchestra that during rehearsal they had asked the players, “Well what do you all think we should do?” 

Through Scouting and student government, I had already had a lot of leadership training experience by this point in my life. Because of that, I knew in my gut that neither of these approaches were the ones I wanted to take. Even if I wanted to, there was no way I could pull off Stern’s dominating authority because, while I was a good musician and leader, I was no genius. There were people in the orchestra with stronger musical chops than me. So that just wasn’t going to fly, and I didn’t like the idea of that kind of dominance. Conversely, my experience of playing tuba in an orchestra for a conductor who opened up rehearsal for group discussion about the music was also unsatisfying. I knew firsthand that I and most others functioned best when the conductor created a sturdy container with clear expectations. The orchestras I played in weren’t set up to be true democracies. It was better for everyone if I could bring a clear vision and then help us all collectively to share it—adapting as we went, noting things that needed adjustment, making way for better ideas when they arose. It wasn’t about me being stronger than the orchestra; it was about serving in the way that all of us needed.

Today I can see that what I was working out in those rehearsals was a way of cultivating and maintaining trust among a community of people to help them do their work. At its essence, that’s what conducting is—and it’s what good leadership is in general. As the leadership theorist Stephen Covey taught, organizations “move at the speed of trust.” When trust is high, groups of people can do extraordinary things. When it’s low, the absence of trust weighs on the group’s ability to move ahead. In families, workplaces, classrooms, legislatures, theaters, synagogues—in my experience, wherever groups of human beings are involved, trust is the most important ingredient. 

If trust is the most important ingredient in the healthy functioning of groups of human beings, then the ability to admit error is among the most important things for a leader to demonstrate. This isn’t rocket science. When leaders have led a group in the wrong direction, or when they have, wittingly or unwittingly, violated the rules that create the trust container itself, then they’re eroding the group’s trust, depleting its trust account. This has the ultimate effect of making it harder if not impossible for the group to do its work—a leader’s fundamental job. Given that mistakes are a built-in feature of being human, a leader’s ability to publicly admit error to the group they lead is essential.

Perhaps this is why Parashat Vayikra seemingly goes out of its way to enumerate the hatat sacrifices that leaders need to bring when they unintentionally mess up. When the Torah comes to the case of a nasi, or head of a tribe, it begins the verse with the word asher. Rashi, quoting the midrash, notes that asher is related to ashrei, happy: “Happy is the generation whose leader takes care to bring an atonement sacrifice even for an inadvertent act—because it is even more certain it is that such a leader will repent for their willful sins” (Rashi on Leviticus 4:22). Rabbi Menahem David Kalish of Amshinov (1860–1918) comments, “Wouldn’t it have been better if the leader hadn’t erred in the first place? Not so, for a leader who has not tasted sin lacks the capacity to forgive another. Such a one does not understand or feel in their heart the brokenness of the sinner and will wind up distancing and pushing away anyone who they perceive as not perfect like them.”

I don’t understand the rebbe to be arguing that leaders should try to make mistakes. Rather, I take him to mean that leaders—even saintly ones—are human beings, and thus imperfect. Leaders make mistakes, just like all humans. They, and the systems they serve, need a mechanism for doing teshuva. The Torah recognizes that and makes room for it. The leader’s hatat sacrifice exists because, on the one hand, the community needs to maintain a category of leadership so it can authorize leaders to help it do its work; and, on the other, it enables leaders and the communities they serve to repair breaches and harm when they happen, and restore the trust on which the life of the community depends.

This isn’t just for orchestra conductors or CEOs, though. While some may serve as leaders with authority, all of us exercise leadership all the time. One of my favorite expressions from this comes in an introductory essay by Parker Palmer to a wonderful poetry anthology called Leading From Within, with which I’ll close: “With every act of leadership, large and small, we help co-create the reality in which we live, from the microcosm of personal relationships to the macrocosm of war and peace… What does it take to qualify as a leader? Being human and being here. As long as I am here, doing whatever I am doing, I am leading, for better or for worse. And, if I may say so, so are you.” 

For Reflection & Conversation

How easy or difficult is it for you to admit you’ve made a mistake? What makes it easier or harder? How might your spiritual practice support you in doing teshuva you need to do?

“It’s hard to make plans these days.” In the years preceding her Alzheimer’s diagnosis (perhaps in a sign of things to come) I remember my mother saying these words regularly. I’m sure there was truth to it: the effects of aging on the body made it harder to know how she or my father would feel about traveling, or even just going someplace, when the time came. It was harder to make plans.

I’ve been hearing my mother saying these words in my mind recently as we’ve begun a new strategic planning effort at IJS—because it does, indeed, feel hard to make plans these days. We had a quarterly board meeting this week and I thought about so many big things that have changed in the world just since our last meeting three months ago: the return of the last of the Israeli hostages from Gaza; the violence in Minneapolis; US military action in Venezuela, and now a bona fide campaign against Iran; saber rattling about Greenland; not to mention the continuing saga of the Epstein files, the latest advances in AI and increasing worries about its effects on employment; the Supreme Court ruling the President’s tariffs illegal, and uncertainty about what happens next; oil at $120 a barrel and concomitant economic effects. Oh, and ever-present and seemingly increasing worries about threats to Jewish safety, whether in the form of missiles in Israel or violence directed at synagogues, including yesterday’s events in West Bloomfield, not far from my home town of Ann Arbor.

That’s just a partial list, yet reading it I can’t help but hear my mom: It’s hard to make plans. As a not-for-profit, we rely on fundraising for about 40 percent of our revenue. A lot of that depends on the economy. The more volatility there is in the market, the harder it is for us to plan. Likewise, as a Jewish organization serving a broad range of folks, we have to be mindful of the assumptions we bring into our work: about what Jewishness means to our participants, about whether and how they relate to Israel or experience antisemitism. And as an organization serving human beings, we have to be aware of AI, and other technologies, and the effects they have—and might have—on those we aim to serve and support, as well as how safe they feel: physically, emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise. All of that is churning amidst this typhoon of change.

I’ll add one more wrinkle to all this. Our organizational tagline is, “Grounded in mindfulness. Guided by wisdom.” Mindfulness, of course, invites us to let go of planning. The only thing we can really know in any given moment is our experience of that moment. When I’m meditating and notice my mind starting to plan, I’ll often say to myself, “Oh, planning is arising. Got it. Let me set that aside for the moment and return my attention to my breath.”

That can perhaps lead to the mistaken notion that mindfulness eschews planning—or its twin, thinking about the past. I don’t think that’s right. It’s mindless not to plan—whether we’re going to the grocery store or going to war (though it goes without saying that the stakes of one of those are immeasurably higher than the other). It’s also less than mindful to overinvest our plans with a feeling of firm knowledge. The problem is not planning per se; the problem is when we allow planning to become an escape from this moment, which is the only thing we can genuinely know.

Parashat Vayakhel opens with a final mention of Shabbat in the context of building the Mishkan: “On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Shabbat Shabbaton, a sabbath of complete rest, holy to YHVH” (Exodus 35:2). Throughout this series of Torah portions, the text has consistently juxtaposed the workweek activities of building the Tabernacle with the sacred rest of Shabbat. This impresses upon us the inverse relationship of the two: Not only is the specific labor involved in constructing the Mishkan prohibited on Shabbat, but Shabbat in its fullest manifestation is the absence of that labor.

“When Shabbat arrived, rest arrived,” says the Midrash. Building on this, Rabbi Mordechai Twersky of Chernobyl (1770-1837) observes, “Rest is an aspect of wholeness, of completion—which one arrives at after much effort. And so too the opposite: Something that requires effort reflects an element of lack. Thus, those things which we regularly experience as missing in our lives, like money or personal honor, are spiritually akin to the workweek. But not so Shabbat, which instructs us about wholeness.”

The six days of the workweek are not just a time. Like Shabbat, they are a mindset—and the two mindsets exist in relation with each other. Or, better yet, they are two parts of a single mindset. Just as on Shabbat the Torah prohibits us from planning or preparing (hachana), during the workweek we invest our planning and preparation with an awareness of Shabbat, with purpose and intention (melechet machshevet). In an ideal world, the rhythm of planning and pausing, doing and resting, helps us invest whatever moment we’re in with awareness and presence. When we can live in that way, our planning and our doing become our own versions of the sacred service to build a home for the Divine in the world.

For Reflection & Conversation

How do you experience planning? Is it easy or hard, enjoyable or unpleasant? Why? Has your relationship with planning changed over time? If so, why? How might your Shabbat practice support a healthier relationship with planning?

Three of my happiest moments as a parent have come at our local men’s clothing store, as I have taken each of my sons to find a suit for his bar mitzvah. For starters, the trip strikes a deep chord of familiarity, as I remember shopping for a suit or a sport coat with my own father at the long since closed Ann Arbor Clothing. That’s a warm memory. For another, it has generally marked a milestone, as we don’t live in a community in which kids (or even adults) are expected to wear fancy clothes to shul. Thus, in all three cases, this was the first time they had worn something more upscale than an oxford and khakis. 

That’s seemingly part of a generational shift (likely multi-generational) away from formal dress. These days my youngest will sometimes wear pajamas to school, and when I protest he just gives me the side eye. It’s as though asking him to put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt was the equivalent of ordering up a top hat and tails.

And yet clothing still makes a difference. Developing a wardrobe has been part of the young adulthood of each of my older children, and while my youngest is only 13, he is now equipped with a full line of t-shirts, sweatshirts, and sweatpants, courtesy of his friends’ b’nai mitzvah. In my own life, I find that, even when we’re not going out or having company over for Shabbat dinner, I still feel a need to put on bigdei shabbat, clothes that remind me—or, even better, help me inhabit—the spiritual zone of Shabbos. (In my case that means a white button-down shirt and dark trousers. A suit is still reserved for more rarified occasions.) To me, that’s an interesting marker, because it signifies that my clothing isn’t only about performing a role for others, but also about performing for myself and/or for the Holy One—which is a fascinating idea.

Commenting on Parashat Tetzaveh, Rabbi Avrohom Bornsztain of Sokochov (1838–1910) observes, “The priests require their special clothes, and if they aren’t wearing their holy garments then their sacred service is invalid.” Yet the Levites have no such special requirement. Why so? Because unlike the Levites, whose service was externalized through song, the spiritual work of the kohanim was penimit, internal. “For everything which is internal requires covering: The soul, when it comes into this world, requires a covering—the body. An angel that is sent to this world likewise needs to wear bodily garments.” And, he continues, this is the very notion of wearing special Shabbat clothes, “for Shabbat is itself internality.” He cites the midrash’s gloss on the story in which Naomi tells Ruth, “Wash and anoint yourself, place your garment upon you, and descend to the threshing floor” (Ruth 3:3). “Was she not already wearing clothes?” asks the Midrash. “Rather this is to tell you that she put on Shabbat clothes.” At this moment of her spiritual conversion, the Sokochover teaches, Ruth accessed a new inner life and thus required new clothing—not just physical garments, but spiritual covering. So, too, with the priests—and with all of us (“You shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” as God says in Exodus 19:6).

At the same time, we can’t ignore the social dynamics of clothing. Rashi (on Exodus 28:3) notes that Aaron becomes the High Priest by virtue of the clothing he wears, i.e. if he doesn’t wear the uniform, he simply can’t inhabit the role. With spring training underway, Rule 3.03(c) of Major League Baseball comes to mind: “No player whose uniform does not conform to that of his teammates shall be permitted to participate in a game.” If a player refuses to wear the “garment,” even if it’s Shohei Ohtani hitting a 500-foot home run, they essentially cease to exist in the eyes of the game. 

All of which raises questions about authenticity and a critique we hear invoked frequently these days, performativity. These questions are present for anyone, but they are more acute in the age of social media, in which it’s not always clear—even to the person posting—whether and how these dynamics are at play. Am I sharing this beautiful photo of my family because I feel good and warm and want to invite others into that sensation, or am I not so subtly saying, Look at me and my wonderful family (which, as Tolstoy reminds us, is either just like every other happy family or unhappy in its own special way)? Or, if I’m making a political statement, am I doing that because I genuinely believe it, or to conform to some expectation I sense from others to say something? (And, I might add, we can add an additional layer of questions: What, if anything, is wrong or right in either of those?)

Purim, which always follows Parashat Tetzaveh, invites us even further into these questions not only with its tradition of costumes, but in the deep ways in which Esther’s story plays with dynamics of concealment and revelation, authenticity and role-playing. Those dynamics are perhaps embodied in Mordechai’s pivotal question to Esther, “Who knows if it was not for just such a moment as this that you became Queen?” (Esther 4:14) In response, Esther not only musters her courage—that is, tends to her inner life—but, critically, puts on her royal clothing to plead for her people before the king (5:1). She would seem to be both authentic and performing at the same time, a model for all of us to study.

For Reflection & Conversation

• Noting that this can be a very intimate question for some folks, please handle it with care: When, if ever, have clothes helped you feel more “like yourself?” What changed about you as wore those clothes? How did it affect your sense of yourself?
• When, if ever, do you think about being authentic or genuine versus being performative? What, if anything, helps you to stay grounded and true to yourself?